


An Even Distribution

by Maraceles



Category: Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, The Flash (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Flashpoint Paradox, Futurefic, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:50:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7481313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maraceles/pseuds/Maraceles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hadn’t been born with the mark on his arm, but maybe destiny was not as immutable as most believed; he had killed Nora Allen and suddenly his arm had burned, an incredible cruelty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Even Distribution

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [An Even Distribution 平均分佈](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8273071) by [jls20011425](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jls20011425/pseuds/jls20011425)



It was never a surprise to Eobard. He hadn’t been born with the mark on his arm, but maybe destiny was not as immutable as most believed; he had killed Nora Allen and suddenly his arm had burned, an incredible cruelty. He had slowly stripped away the yellow suit from his limbs, feeling a mixed sensation of incredulity and undeniable relief—everything he had ever known, everything he had ever _felt_ , it wasn’t merely in his head. He was meant to be in Barry Allen’s life. He was meant to _matter_.

Fifteen years later, staring up at Barry and feeling that gnawing hunger grow exponentially by the day, feeling the core of him twist and turn in endless looping agony around the perpetual surprise, the perpetual delight, that Barry instilled within him—he learned that Barry had been _born_ with his own mark. A golden filigree tracing over Barry’s shoulder and tangling in feathery wisps over his heart, it was a delicate mirror to the sharp crimson lines that arced around Eobard’s arm; the brand had somehow transferred to the body he had stolen. As if it were inescapable, as if there was nothing to be done; Barry had come into the world with his mark intact—born with it sure, and solid, and unwavering--dragging Eobard's soul into compliance, remaking him to accommodate his own. It made a certain kind of sense: Barry was celestial, as primal and innate as the heavens. Eobard careened around him, a satellite in orbit. 

“I’ve always known,” Barry said, decades later. Tears were running down his face; they stood on the edge of a cliff, the world in ruins around them, Central City destroyed and the Amazons at war with Atlantis, each and every mistake born in the light of Barry Allen’s fateful choice, in his flashpoint of filial grief. Barry was lurching to his feet and could barely speak, so badly was he winded, but Eobard let him be. He had injured Barry enough for the moment. “Even when I told myself otherwise. Even when I tried to pretend.”

“I wasn’t meant to bring you love,” Eobard said. Their lives had never mended; they might have been soulmates to the core, but forgiveness was an impossible conception between them. “Though you have it, as horrible as that is to hear from me.”

“No,” Barry murmured, shaking his head. “You were meant to bring me peace.”

Eobard looked at him, surprised.

“Do you know how many times that I’ve rewritten history?” Barry asked him, self-hatred in his voice. “How many times I’ve tried to bring her back?”

“I do,” Eobard said softly.

“I’m always making mistakes,” Barry said. “You…you make me live with them.”

In another world, perhaps, Eobard would have drawn him closer. He would have held Barry in his arms and helped him to pretend that the world didn’t matter, that there was nothing more important for Barry to consider than his own desires, his own feelings, that the ten-year-old boy who had lost his mother (in each and every universe, in a variety of ways) grew up with clear eyes, with unbowed head. 

“But I’m a better man,” Barry said slowly, “because of you. I think—you told me, once, that what was between us was a mistake. That it wasn’t meant to be. But I think you have it wrong, Dr. Wells”—Eobard smiled ruefully at the old name, and at the familiar anguish it engendered—”I think that I _asked_ for you. I remember telling the Speed Force…”

He trailed off. 

“It found me for you,” Eobard said quietly. “It gave you an anchor. And a mirror. To remind you of all the things you should not be.”

“That doesn’t make you angry?”

“It makes me,” Eobard said, with a slight smile, “complete.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“No, it shouldn’t.”

Barry turned to look at him, his face set, his expression almost angry. “I’ll go to my grave hating you, Eobard. Wishing you were dead. That you never took me in, that you never saved me. I’m going to hate you until I take my very last breath—”

Eobard reached for Barry at that, touching his face gently. “I know.”

“Good,” Barry said harshly, his voice breaking, but then they were kissing.


End file.
